Pierre clapped Guichard on the shoulder. "I do not know how he does these things, but he always surprises us with what he has learned. And by his care for us in so many ways."
Guichard stepped back with another bow, and Pierre turned to a short man and a plump woman also standing before the hearth. The woman's full lips curved in a smile of greeting for Pierre; then she plucked at her skirts, lifting them a bit, and bent her knees and ducked her head.
"This is Marchette Perrault," Pierre said, and Auguste noticed that his normally pale face was flushed. "She reigns over our kitchen." Auguste did not need to rely on his special sense to see that there was a loving secret between Marchette and his father.
The man standing beside Marchette, short and powerful-looking, with a bristling brown beard, was staring at Pierre with hatred in his face, his eyes narrowed. His mouth was invisible in his beard, but Auguste knew that his lips were pressed together, his teeth clenched. He also knew that this short man was as strong as a bull buffalo.
The look the brown-bearded man gave Pierre frightened Auguste, and he wondered if he was the only one who could see it.
"Armand Perrault, here, is the overseer of our estate," Pierre said, apparently oblivious of the man's expression. "He makes the crops flourish, the trees bear fruit and the cattle grow fat. He and Marchette come from French families who settled here many generations ago."
Armand bowed, a quick jerk of his head and shoulders, to Pierre. Somewhat to Auguste's relief, the angry man did not even look at him. Abruptly he turned his back and strode across the hall to a side door.
Pierre said, "Most of those who live and work here at Victoire are Illinois people of French descent. The town, Victor, grew up after we built our home here. Most of the people there are Americans from Missouri, Kentucky or back East. Everyone you meet in America is from somewhere else."
Not my people, Auguste thought.
Marchette made another bow to Pierre and left, too, to go into another connected house in which Auguste saw a fire burning under a huge metal pot in another hearth. There was much smoke and steam in that lodge, and he could not see everything, but the good smells were coming from there, and he remembered that he had eaten nothing today but a little dried venison.